Debate /Bermondsey This was no freak

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Socialist Organiser no.123 March 10 1983 Page

The Rermondsew coint - is this the nattern for other inner city "safe seats"? 'It wasn't the Liberals that mondsey was a freak result. immediate way around this.

They said the same about I am merely pointing out won at Bermondsey; it was Edge Hill. In my opinion that this section of the the Liberals will go on oppressed has been very winning seats like these much neglected, if not WHEN I first became actively involved in politics in 1968, it was only natural that I should join Bermondsey Labour Party. I knew nothing of those radical organisations with the strange initials. The predominance of council housing meant that Bermondsey was anything but cosmopolitan.

At General Election time it was just a straight fight between Labour and the token Tory. The Liberals didn't even bother standing. With my grandparents living in the 'Garden city' socialist paradise of Wilson Grove, and my parents being pre-war members of the Labour League of Youth it had to be the Labour Party for me.

Unfortunately, the Bricklayers Ward in Spa Road 15 years ago was about as inspiring as an omnibus edition of Crossroads. The 'politics' was strictly parish pump - the most heated Issue, 1 seem to remember, was that of dogs fouling the pavements.

Apart from myself, the meeting was attended by pensioners and the were five ocoble IWO were three were councillors. The youngest among them was probably pushing 40 and smoked a Harold Wilson pipe.

When the meeting concluded, I asked about the Young Socialists. "The trouble with them was that they were too political. We had to close them down"

Bermondsey Labour Party was, in 1968, obviously not where things were at.

It was not concerned about Vietnam, South Affica, anti-fascism and all the other burning issues of the day. It was senile, complacent and reactionary. It was Harold Wilson, George Brown, Callaghan and Bob 'I think that Enoch Powell talks a lot of sense about immigration" Mellish.

Like a lot of others on the left 1 sought to bypass the Labour Party until I realised that the revolution was not going to be made between Kings Cross and the Caledonian Road. By the time I properly reintegrated into the Labour Party I had moved to Liverpool, Edge Hill.

Here was something pretty familiar. A working class inner-city area with a high number of old people. A 'safe' Labour seat for 30 years, and an MP who had done nothing for his constituents for most of that time.

By 1977, the movement for democratisation in the Labour Party was on the up and Edge Hill CLP unanimously kicked out Sir Arthur Irvine as its MP. When he died, however, a by-election in l March 1979 turned a large Labour majority into a Liberal majority of over 8,000.

Edge Hill There are three important differences between the Edge Hill by-election and Bermondsey. Firstly Edge Hill has an extremel low proportion of counci housing. Secondly, the Liberals have been in control of. Liverpool City Council for a number of years and have used this position to political advantage, especially in the sphere of housing. (The frequent libel writs Liberals issue against opponents prevent me from further comment).

Finally the Edge Hill Labour candidate in 1979 (March and May) had the charisma of a sponge pudding and the local Labour Party was no match for the Liberal campaign machine. In all other respects however the by-elections were very similar.

Smear

In Edge Hill in March 1979 the national officers of the Labour Party gave us the distinct impression that they were out to lose us the seat. It wasn't so much a deliberate ploy as sheer incompetence and ineptitude.:

Then of course there was the smear campaign on the lines of "Labour hijacked by Trotskyists". In Bermondsey the Liberals didn't need to go in for this because O'Grady and Fleet Street. were doing it tor them. Nevertheless, Liverpool Liberals are well-known for their 'dirty politics'.

People said that over the next five years.

They have the hear hv- the left. election machinery of all three major parties and can really concentrate their forces. Secondly, many voters will not take the explanation 'it has all changed in the Labour Party now that the right wing has been kicked out" They see what has happenad te thom nan failuur of eu w leu as a lauge vl Labour, pure and simple.

In Edge Hill we thought that Alton's victory would be reversed in a General Election. It didn't happen. His majority was cut from 8,000 to 4,000. This is now a safe Liberal seat.

The Liberals are presenting an image locally that they are like what the Labour Party used to be, or rather what people imagine it used to be. In Bermondsey, I think the same thing will happen. I cannot see the Liberal being shifted no matter how 'good' the Labour candidate, and clearly Peter Tatchell is the best Labour MP. Bermondsey never had.

A fundamental lesson to learn from these two by-election defeats is the difficulty of trying to relate politically to old working class people. I can't see an maligned or patronised by 43% of the Bermondsey electorate were classed as elderly by one of the media surveys. They really were the ones to fall victim to the anti-Tatchell smears put about by the robbers dog O'Grady, probably with the help of fascist elements. Examples of this I heard were 'Do vou know that if you're gay or lesbian you can get a council flat dead easy?" or 'They say Peter Tatchell lives on the Rockingham Estate but he doesn't actually live there. He's a squatter." or "He rides around on a bicycle, but someone saw him driving a car the other day."

If this is the kind of crap working class people actually believe, then it is a real uphill job to change their minds. Old people are passive victims of councils, planners, media and governments. It is really the problem of "ageism the left must address itself to.

Every bad byelection result might not have a silver lining. In Edge Hill the Liberal vote was a vacuum cleaner sucking up all the fringe votes. In Bermondsey, however, it was pleasing to find that Screaming Lord Sutch did well, coming fifth in the poli with 97 votes. Pleasing in the sense that it showed the total irrelevance of tha Communict Darta 15n tary lou votes) to the working class.

Despite the press, the right wing - ex-Labour mafia, the Foot leadership, the bigotry, etc., Peter Tatchell won nearly 8,000 votes. That in itself is a victory. Tatchell has helped in the restructuring and rebuilding of the Labour Moromont I hana ha hope LIC stands again in the General Election and wins the seat.

It is up to the rest of us to realise that turning the Labour Party into an organisation that truly represents the interests of the working class is not a straightforward task which can be achieved overnight. It will be a patchy struggle with many setbacks.

The present project of the Labour right is for an SDP mark II. This must be resisted. An exodus from the Labour Party of people who don't like losing elections will be an abject betrayal of socialism.

Peter Tatchell has politicised Bermondsey Labour Party. That is the reason why he is hated by our enemies. We have to carry on that struggle and turn electoral defeats into victory.

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Flack in SO last week. Bas Hardy argues that the Liber als not only won, but may well continue to win.